r u busy right now?

when ur friends tell you to start a friday
u should tell them u r very busy 
with the moon. there is so much of it 
to sever & u r tired of being
the person everyone goes to 
when the week is killing itself.
u step out into a red scheme & count
ur blessings on ur toes. everyone u know
has been really down lately. 
depression coils in the freezer 
next to ur pints of ice cream. provisions
for the coming ice rage.
u r looking for a new lover
even though u still have an old one.
at the Good Will everyone is hungry
for a heart. u buy sneakers
& put them on a ghost so you can see
him walking. keep an eye on
that fucker. this weekend
will turn itself inside out
& u will see all its organs.
this morning the planet is getting thinner 
& the forecast calls
for dead pigeons. when u find one
u need to bring it inside
to make ash of its body. 
paint the ash on the inside
of ur front door for safety.
there r so many precautions these days
to stay alive. all ur friends
with their glowing friday. 
choking on marshmallow & dares.
the bound fire shrinks 
to the size of a period. a blood stain
echoes on the ceiling. 
u r done all ur musts & u r lonely.
ur thoughts echo back at u.
maybe u should have gone to the friday
but they r wild & violent people.
who knows where it would have
ended. u might have lost ur whole
october to that kind of fever.
then again, someone might have kissed u.
someone might have
touched u with his, her, they teeth
& turned u into the bright obelisk
u want to be. the moon 
weeps in daggers. goodnight.

shadow 

i do not believe in underworlds
though i might be one.
i turn off all the lights 
in my apartment at night-- feel my way
down the hall to my bed room.
in bed, i find myself, laying 
& staring up at the ceiling.
eyes glass & pried open. 
close the lids. tell her to sleep.
all the walls here are white.
when i was little i used to want
to paint my bedroom black
but my dad said the room world shrink.
i want a smaller den. the darkness becomes
a kind of language. when Jung talks about
the shadow, does he mean 
the way i can look in the mirror 
& see eighteen of us, standing deeper
& deeper? or, maybe he means
how lately i can walk into a room over & over 
without any idea why i arrived.
i should be more careful
with peeling apart. everything is water
when you get down to it.
dip your feet in me. my shadow 
is often a girl's shadow. my shadow sometimes
eats the bones of snakes.
once i caught my shadow laughing
& i told him to swallow whatever it was
he thought was so funny. 
find clams in the bathtub.
someone is always awake. what should we do
with our faces? i'm setting mine
in a pool of salt for safe keeping.
i kind of want to be psychoanalyzed.
what would they find wrong with me?
it was probably my childhood of
glass & tree trunks. that's why 
i'm a boy. my shadow gets hungry 
in the middle of the night.
sulks to a corner & stands there.
good. leave me alone. 
always the feeling someone is
inching up behind you. 
i turn to check i'm alone. 

piranha feeding time

i am so eager to meet you.
we've been texting for weeks.
i send you pictures of my body:
pale in the dim light of my dorm room.
the curve of a thigh. legs open.
here is my chest. i am 
a special kind of delectable boy.
do you like girls? do you like boys?
where do you keep you mouth?
at the aquarium with my family,
i am trying to pretend i'm not sexting.
we stand around the touch tank
& i reach for a starfish. 
cool water. a single sting ray
circling, staying away from our fingers.
the last boy i messaged fell away.
less & less responses on the app.
he never gave me a picture but he said
"i want a boy like you i always have."
there should be more sharks here.
we look at the quiet octopus 
& she stares back at us. 
my brother admits he is scared
of the ocean. everything is blue:
walls, floor, lights. i am worried
this is just a game to you--
that tomorrow you will be bored
& moved on to another meat.
will you drive to find me
in this deep dark water? 
finally, at the piranha tank
we get to see them feed. 
their thrashing. their need.
blood in the water. all the piranha eyes
like little earrings glinting
in the pool. i imagine them in their 
natural world. dense forest.
rushing amazon river. you ask me
what i'm doing & i say i'm waiting
for you. you say "another picture?"
& i say i am in the amazon right now
but i go to the bathroom
& take just one. neon light.
strange shadows. in my pictures
my body is not my body 
but maybe just blood & aesthetics.
a cloud of piranha taking bits
of my skin. piece by piece.
you say, "yes that's so hot
you're in public." a glass tank
rises around me. i join my family again
& we linger at the piranha tank
a little longer. the fish glance
at us with curiosity 
or disdain. i know you won't come.
my phone vibrates again 
against my thigh pocket.

on swallowing

red tail lights reflect off the ceiling
of the holland tunnel. rows & rows. 
a necklace of light. in the back seat of my car
all my books try to sleep in their boxes.
my apartment folded into a trunk.
all last summer, there was a tree 
that swarmed with bees. we stared at it
through the bathroom window. a train horn
blared like a ghost. i left 
a mark on the wall from where i tried
to pull off a little painting of a seahorse.
it is never a good time to leave new york.
i wanted to cross the george washington 
but my GPS took me under. a reminder
that there is always more beneath.
that october night when
all the subway cars were held still
& we looked at each other & out 
the dark windows. dense traffic 
in the tunnel. choking on vehicles.
i grip the steering wheel
& try turn off the radio in my heart.
listen to car calls ahead & wonder
how long i will sit here. 
aloud i say, "please please please."
there was no air. i am becoming
a fish. i am becoming a brick.
i feel all the necks of the buildings
peering down at me. no movement.
ceiling's necklace of red lights.
above i walk
like a fragment. car moans. 
do i want to leave?
no where to turn around. the tunnel
narrowing into a throat. 
regret is an easy motion. arises
ready as an obelisk. take me back
to what i know. i am always aching
for an old life.  
did i leave the light on in my bedroom?
will i miss the little benches
outside the post office? 
slowly, cars move forward,
one at a time. a little nudge of escape.
i cry & wipe my face
with the back of my palm. i don't know
where i am pushing. take me back
to june when i thoroughly believed in green
dark of the tunnel. the length
expanding in the silences 
between car horns. 

GPS 

i said i want to go home
& the GPS carried me to the mouth
of a river. drove through the mountain
& back down & into a vortex of blue
& through the head of needle & in & out
of parking lots & through 
the front door of a walmart & back
to the deep tall woods. all the while
the GPS said, we are almost there
we are almost there. the radio
looked for a hymn & spun static. 
windows peeled
like lips. everyday 
is a sunday from now on.
i miss the way my doorbell sang
like a tin bird. right there is where
the mailbox would be & here
is where i'd tie a pink balloon
to its neck. who is going to try
being a woman with me? the GPS 
is dainty & she wove map.
she pointed to a cliff & said town hall. 
she found an abandoned church
& said this is a university & now
here i am at a river 
in no country at all.
do i want to have an address? 
who sends me letters anyway? 
the junk mail is sulking off
into the ether. the sky is bruising for me.
or, maybe that's selfish, it could be
bruising just for the sensation.  
i am dreaming of those signs that signal
you are crossing into one state 
from another. we passed eight 
welcome to pennsylvania signs,
prying back the state's layers.
will anyone miss me if i never arrive?
oh, GPS, what do you know about 
home? i could drop you like a rock
into the river & walk myself to dust.
i miss every place i ever was--
even gas stations & parking lots.
the river is widening now. no horizon
just water. the GPS is saying
arrived arrived arrive. cold water.
floating like a leaf. 
take me somewhere bright,
are you listening?

bleeding heart dove

o phantom bullet where did you exit me?
all the trees turn into hands reaching
to pull down a curtain. soon it will be night
& i will count street lights & guns.
a dagger floats nearby ready to carve flesh.
fish lay on dinner tables with their eyes
all glossy & afraid. 
i find a stream to look at myself.
if i'm not careful the mark will turn
into a true gash. a wound is often
originated in the mind. that's where it turns red 
& blooms. i have seen deer shot & stumbling.
i have seen boys fall limp in open fields.
a scab forms over the sunset. 
i'm preening myself of saddnesses
& dreaming of the right kind of weapon.
bow & arrow maybe or a spear.
someday, i hope to return as a poet
or at least a diamond. something sturdier.
on the forest floor everything 
is stretching above me. find a berry.
find a grub. whistle to myself. 
ache is spreading across my wings
from the blood mark. soon i will nestle
in the brush & try to think of nothing
but feathers. feathers falling
from a tree. once, a friend told me
every death becomes one of our feathers.
i tried to count mine but fell asleep.
there must be a tree that grows guns.
o gunpowder. o fire. o ambush.
o man trekking through the wood. 
let me be your omen. 
guard your colors. bleed alone. 

the lake dried up last night

an act of sublimation-- 
instantaneous heat. no one knew 
what to do. sirens dislodged 
from their emergencies. i shut my door
& plugged my ears. a thorough singe. 
i'm staring down
the head of a pin but it's a dream
so it's alright i will soon wake up
at 4am & stare into the quiet dark 
of my bedroom. my dresser 
is a man full of clothes. pull
panties from his mouth. thank you thank you.
i don't wish i was a girl
but i do wish always to be more dainty.
give me a lace fire. give me 
a bow on my Armageddon. 
all my shoes are glass now.
i swim through a house filled with water.
i'm in a bikini & everyone can see
& they like it. my breasts turned
into helium balloons long ago 
& they still skirt across the ceiling. 
about the lake:
there are animals mourning.
birds pluck along the parched edge
looking for dried worms. 
a shriveled snake curved 
like a question mark the in dust.
he's asking what what what &
who did this?
freeze dried reeds. i've stopped
trying to drink water & now i just
inhale the ash. there is a wind chime
where ribs were. the pin
enters my skin smoothly. there is no pain 
at all in being set in place. 
who am i going to take down to the river
now that i am alone & now that
the river is just a trail of rocks.
a gender is the loneliest thing. 
why did i make myself? 
i miss my bleached hair. i miss
the makeup i wore three nights ago.
& blush why don't i have any blush.
give me acrylics i want 
to dig in the dirt like a monster.
the lake is sleeping now
where no one can touch it.

when the rivers turned to stone

we hiked over those rocks
looking for a scab of water.
you licked the surface of a boulder
& told me you could feel the rain.
none of us had drank for years 
but we remembered vividly
the feeling of cool blue
rushing through us. once, when i was small
my father bathed me. poured water
over my head & scrubbed me clean.
my skin glistened like sliver. 
now, there are children 
who have never seen water. they float
an inch above the ground, nothing
tethering them to the dirt.
so they will disappear
through the clouds & we will only have
their shoes. instead of water at the river, 
we found snakes 
all knotted in their dens. 
they were telling
mother stories & singing 
a low hum. i could have joined in
but it might have been rude.
they were mourning their limbs.
the rocks trembled 
with their intonations. 
walking further you told me
the story of a frozen waterfall nearby.
said it used to rush so harshly
all the surrounding woods
were cloaked in mist. 
laying on our backs i said
i might float away too if i don't find
a drop soon. you said 
you wondered if the future 
might be better off without
all of our needs. i am a creature
of cravings. i do not know
if i could exist without them.
would i even be animal?
no, no i think i would be stone.
you covered your face
with your hands & the sun 
did its daily shrinking
to the size of a pin-pick. 
rock, shivering, i swear i felt
a minute drop of water
on my forehead. i did not tell you,
i just looked up at the shadowy sky
& briefly believed 
in my own personal micro storm.

poet 

my tongue fits through the head 
of a needle. my sewing machine
wants to make me a new skin
so i collect the pelts of roadkill:
a fox & a raccoon & a rabbit.
their souls dance like jello all around. 
soon i will be a cryptid & children
will invent legends about me
& my patchy fur & my fish eyes.
hopscotch squares draw themselves
on the sidewalk. a rock falls from a tree.
i'm talking about gosh not god.
here comes the aching again.
if they took out all my blood
& funneled it back in again 
would i finally be alive? 
once i found a leech on my ankle.
a bug bite bloomed on the back of my thigh 
between my leg hairs. everyone 
& everything is getting hungry.
this autumn i don't know what to wear.
the sweaters have moved on to clothe 
more beautiful people. i need
a sleep bag to hibernate in.
in my fur, i'll eat poison berries
& blur into a phantom. 
my silhouette is a folklore.
lock the street at night
or you might become a piece
of one of my poems. all animals 
have their poets. big foot 
is out there somewhere stringing 
words together in his mouth.
even the wood pecker has a love
for caesura & the lantern fly 
over uses the emb-dash 
just like me. i want to give up
my pens & typing machines so that
i can only write poems 
in the dirt & the sidewalk chalk.
poems under feet. do i miss
being human? should i bury myself
for winter? is the ground already frozen?
latex gloves grow from a new tree.
i put them on. one blue. one opaque.
let us be sanitary with our love.
i go to the river
to witness floating. 

hush, the claw-foot tub is coming

metal paws & pink bubble. 
sloshing water up the street.
a footstep is sometimes not just a footstep 
but a faint warning. i walk barefoot
into the jagged morning & cut my ankles
on the edges. tin can mouths
gape like fish lips. who is going to pick
the turnips from the asphalt.
who is going to call my brother
& tell him i remember the pocket
he left in his bedroom wall. 
we are all hiding something 
& me mentioning this made you locate something
in your own depths. the ocean will be replaced
by a replica. i'm squeezing the alleys shut.
the less coves the better. sea levels
are rising & with them they bring 
syringes & bath toys. i'm not ready
to scrub, give me time. i like my dirt
& my grim. when we were little
we used to dig holes in the yard.
craters. we were asteroids or comets.
tails of fire. the attic abused us.
the basement slurped our names 
from our ears. i do not love anyone 
as much as i love a good suite case.
take me somewhere else where i can be
a lingerie girl. i'm selling 
a different kind of fantasy. 
who are you going to trust?
your mother or the weatherman
who writes his predictions in video?
the next storm that comes 
will be pink soaped. the claw-foot tub
paws at my front door. i turn off the light
& whisper, "no one is home." 
the beast sits there & i peer
through the peep hole. 
i've made puppets of all my socks already
& soon even my bedroom will scar over.
i need a stenographer for this.
a little man in a jar to jot down
my unraveling. i look for him
in the blackberry jam but no one.
alas the sunset has come complete 
with a swiss army knife.
dissect me, Monday evening. 
i'm a thing to be scavenged.